1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wire harness design supporting method and a technique related to the method.
2. Description of the Background Art
Generally, a wire harness installed on a vehicle is designed in such a manner that layout of main parts such as an engine, a radiator, an air conditioner and a car stereo, and various electrical components such as a control unit for controlling the main parts is designed, and after that, as shown in FIG. 21, while checking interference with the various electrical components and the vehicle body shape by using a software program called a three-dimensional design system (three-dimensional CAD) on a computer, routing of wire harnesses is designed through the various electrical components and the vehicle body so as to electrically connect predetermined electrical components. In FIG. 21, reference numeral 1 denotes a three-dimensional model indicative of the body of a vehicle, 2 denotes wire harnesses, and 3 denotes parts such as connectors electrically connected to various electrical components.
At a stage of manufacturing a wire harness, in order to suppress the number of manufacturing steps and cost, as shown in FIG. 23, a wire harness is manufactured while positioning an electric wire or electric wire bundle (hereinafter, referred to as “electric wires” or the like) 2a by jigs on a flat assembly working table 5. On the assembly working table 5, a drawing 6 for instructing manufacturing of a wire harness as shown in FIG. 22 is adhered. The drawing for instructing manufacturing of a wire harness has to be created by being two-dimensionally developed.
Conventionally, routing of the wire harness as shown in FIG. 21 is designed by using a three-dimensional CAD. After that, on the basis of the design, a drawing of a wire harness two-dimensionally developed as shown in FIG. 22 has been manually created.
According to the conventional method, as described above, the drawing 6 of the two-dimensionally developed wire harness used for the assembly working table 5 has been manually created. Reference numeral 3a in FIG. 23 denotes a connector and reference numeral 3b denotes a clamp.
At the time of actually three-dimensionally attaching a wire harness two-dimensionally developed and manufactured to a vehicle, the wire harness has to be formed in a shape that can be easily attached while reducing twist, tension and the like as much as possible. However, in reality, at the time of manually creating a drawing of wire harnesses two-dimensionally developed, the development and designing has to be made by always considering twist, bending and the like of the wire harnesses at all of branch points of the wire harness, connection points with electrical components, and the like, so that long time and enormous manpower are required.